収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

I genuinely don't even know how to start with this weekend.

You've seen bits of it, even if you go nowhere else. Mastodon successfully launched its first Internet Meme of the Day, proving that it's a real social network after all.

It got started when Mediaite reported on the JoinMastodon account being banned by Musk on Twitter. The reporter misread the account name as JOHN Mastodon, and made up whole cloth that John Mastodon was the founder of Mastodon, a company they made up as the operator of the Mastodon social network, named for John Mastodon. A few hours later, here we were. Also here and here and here and here and here and you get the idea it goes on a lot.

Musk Twitter responded by banning links to profiles on a list of other social media sites - calling it "promotion of other social media platforms" or some such bullshit - starting with links to Mastodon, but also Facebook, Instagram, Linktree (because those could have links to the banned sites, you see) and an assortment of others, but not to Gab, Gettr, or Parler, meaning basically that linking to explicitly fascist sites was still okay. That's since been modified and mostly wound down, but I don't know that Twitter isn't still tagging links to major Mastodon sites as unsafe/malware.

Which they were doing, if you missed that.

We know also that Musk went to Saudi Arabia for the world cup finale, was photographed with Jared Kushner in the Saudi box, and it's being reported his Saudi investors are not amused and have insisted he install a proper CEO and stop being a clown. He's currently running a poll about whether he should step down as CEO. Last I saw, he was losing badly.

Also banned from Twitter were several more reporters, another assortment of left-leaning people (usual suspects and all that), and a bunch of other people who dared link off-site such as Paul Graham of Y Combinator, one of the most important if not the most important venture capital groups in Silicon Valley. Parts 1 and 2 are funny, but it's part 3 which is the real "life comes at you fast sometimes" story.

Meanwhile, Tesla investors are getting pretty angry, though I don't have a convenient link and I need to get this posted, sorry. I may edit later if I come across one.

And all hilarity aside, it's very important to note that Twitter absolutely is becoming a deadly serious disinformation hub throughout all of this, with a particular emphasis on anti-vaccination conspiracy theories. See also. So get off Twitter, stay away from Twitter. For reals.

Meanwhile, Mastodon is currently dealing with another mass influx of new users, with the largest instances putting a temporary stop to accepting additional accounts. With so many nodes, however, this hasn't really affected the uptake rate yet. It's not quite up to the terrifying numbers of the Great Day of Layoffs, but it's close. The largest instances are a bit slow at the moment, but staying up. Smaller instances are generally doing fine.

I'm genuinely kind of stunned at how well Mastodon-the-software has scaled so far. This is an absolutely brutal stress test, and it's holding up - as yet, anyway. Fingers crossed.

And that's the news.

Here, go read this long but good thread on Mastodon about Musk's personal use of Twitter harassment and false charges of supporting child sexual assault yesterday to attack his critics.

You might recall he levelled the same completely false charges at a diver who participated in the rescue of children from a cave flood in Thailand, after that diver failed to support Musk's suggestion of bringing in some kind of fictional cave submarine.

This is why Twitter is over. He's turning it into a disinformation hub and weaponising it against everyone he sees as his enemies, and for the so-called alt-right.

It is past time to leave.

eta: every other post I've made about this specific thing to Facebook, and I've made three, have zero interactions. Every other post I've made over the last few days has several. I think Facebook is keeping these post entirely out of peoples' timelines and I don't know why.

An as-yet unposted twitter thread. It'll be my last one.

( Not yet posted to Twitter, but probably will be soon )

We're starting to have data on Elon's "general amnesty" of alt-right, covid-disinformation, and botnet accounts.

JM Berger (Brookings Institute, MIT Press, The Atlantic) has a blog post up with links to hard data. It's around 13,000 known accounts so far. Of those returning, most of those associated with the January 6th insurrection and QAnon have become active again, but the older accounts - including a huge restoration of the older Russian botnet accounts which engaged in election manipulation - are less likely to have resumed activities, at least as of November 30.

The accounts which have resumed activity have generally picked up where they left off, with tagged attacks on the people they most hate.

At least it's now well confirmed that Russian botnets are part of the "amnesty."

JM's blog post contains a link to a Google Docs file of restored accounts with some annotations. You can browse, if you're curious.

Regardless, this is Musk Twitter, and why it's over and it's time to leave.

Whelp, Facebook flagged one of my posts about Musk's BS as violating FB standards. It was the commentary about the numbers 14 and 88, used by white nationalists and neonazis to refer to support of a white ethnostate and/or Adolph Hitler and his goals.

Never received a Facebook strike before, so that's interesting. My account is currently limited (albeit in ways I don't care about - I can't go live for 29 days, I can't advertise for 29 days) and I have of course appealed.

The big news this evening is that Elon Musk's Twitter is suspecting accounts reporting on the protests in China.

"HK activist @aimenlau and Taiwanese writer @VickieDeTaiwan have been suspended on Twitter for 'platform manipulation and spam' when all they've done is tweet about the protests in China."

QAnon is being brought back to Twitter, at scale. Fascists at 8kun (not 8chan, but one of the spinoffs) are lathering themselves over the opportunity to recruit, boosted by someone - Elon Musk - they see as being on their side.

Leave Twitter. Seriously. Now. Staying there only keeps interaction numbers up and tells advertisers it's okay to stay.

Leave.

Now.

The best feature mastodon has which twitter doesn't have isn't the edit button, though that's certainly nice.

The best feature is timed account muting. When someone or some group is just a little much right now, you can mute them for a few hours, or a few days. Or indefinitely, of course, that's still an option though I don't know why you'd do that and not unfollow.

It is the best. damn. feature I never knew I wanted.

So now that Elon Musk is going off about making his own phone, all I can see is a Cybertruck-shaped metal wedge, screen on the bottom, advertised as unbreakable and we all know how that goes.

It's running stock Android one release behind that he's renamed after himself. Twitter is the only messaging app, the lockscreen is his face shopped onto Iron Man's body, overlaid on Mars, and you can't change it unless you pay $8 a month. Where'm I wrong?

This is a really good thread on some of the many, many ways Twitter is no longer ready to function, like, at all.

I personally know someone who triggered one of these in real life, and brought down about... a fifth of the internet, if I remember correctly?

(One of my followers will be fully ready to correct me on the percentage if I'm wrong. It was a lot.)

okay so this is hilarious

elon musk banned parody today

No, I'm not making that up, he literally just banned parody accounts unless they're clearly and specifically stated as parody.

He just banned it after a bunch of bluecheck accounts changed their names to Elon Musk and started shitposting.

It's AMAZING.

People are trying to find out if anyone's being banned for imitating anyone other than Elon. So far two: one being the fascist propagandist Andy N*o, who appealed to Elon directly, and someone imitating Keanu Reeves who tweeted that Elon was a bully.

Nobody else.

Basically they're only doing it if you bully Elon.

It's amazing.